b_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au (Brian Duke) (05/27/91)
My posting asking about which countries are on the net has prompted
some interest in the group and I have received a few e-mails. It
is clear that my question was ill-worded. One connection in a country is
one thing - many connections is quite another.
In spite of this, the comments are not entirely consistent. For example,
one correspondent tells me that only Albania is not on the net. Others
tell me Taiwan, Sri Lanka, to name just two, are not.
I am told that the only connection in Papua New Guinea is the Wau Ecology
Institute with a link put in by Greenpeace. This means the two universities
are not linked.
Some comments seem to suggest that remote parts of the US have similar
problems to developing countries. I beg to differ. I believe all parts of
the US have good telephones - that is the difference. For this reason I
did not mention my own situation in Darwin which is very remote. The
nearest Australian university is over 2000km away. Most, in the cities of
Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide, and places in between, are 3000
+ km away from Darwin. The nearest Australian university is James Cook
University of North Queensland in Townsville. Both PNG universities -
UPNG in Port Moresby (certainly) and PNGUOT in Lae (probably) are closer
to Townsville than we are. The difference is that Darwin is a developed
country so the net was put into here at the same time as Sydney etc. It was
not put into PNG.
You will notice that I refer to our nearest Australian universities. The
nearest universities are actually in Indonesia in the eatern part which
is less well developed than the rest of the country. We have formal links
with Ambon and Kupang and maybe we can help them to get on the net.
One thing is the same between Darwin and developing countries. It cost a
lot of time and money to get to larger cities in developed countries. The
net makes a very significant difference to my academic life now, since it
is difficult to get money to fly to Canberra or Sydney. If I had had the
net when I worked in PNG or in Nigeria, it would have gone a long way in
breaking down the sense of academic isolation which was even greater than
here in Darwin.
Getting the net properly working in developing countries would perhaps
be the single most important development in helping them to compete in
research and education. However lots of other important things would have
to happen at the same time, like good telephone and fax connections,
better organised institutions etc.
--
Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke)
School of Chemistry and Earth Sciences, Northern Territory University
GPO Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811, Australia.
Phone 089-466702 FAX 089-410460 E-mail B_DUKE@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AUswarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (05/29/91)
In article <1991May27.141355.978@darwin.ntu.edu.au> b_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au (Brian Duke) writes: [...] >Getting the net properly working in developing countries would perhaps >be the single most important development in helping them to compete in >research and education. However lots of other important things would have >to happen at the same time, like good telephone and fax connections, >better organised institutions etc. [...] Hey, is it really necessary to have a local telephone exchange before you can hook up internationally? Couldn't a small satellite dish with the appropriate equipment do the job? I really don't know the answer to this question, that is why I am asking. I am recalling stories of Kuwaitis during the Gulf War who were able to maintain telephone contact with the rest of the world because of the satellite dishes they had in their back yards. -- _. --Steve ._||__ Warren v\ *| V
kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) (05/29/91)
In article <1991May28.183943.16259@convex.com> swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) writes: >Hey, is it really necessary to have a local telephone exchange before you >can hook up internationally? > >Couldn't a small satellite dish with the appropriate equipment do the job? I >really don't know the answer to this question, that is why I am asking. I am >recalling stories of Kuwaitis during the Gulf War who were able to maintain >telephone contact with the rest of the world because of the satellite dishes >they had in their back yards. Most of those were people using INMARSAT, a system which is designed for ship to shore radio communication. Suffice it to say that you could buy a small exchange for the cost of an INMARSAT terminal, and you have to feed' it several thousand dollars worth of quarters every hour. This is not at all a profitable way to network. Another way is to rent a satellite transponder and get your signal over it. This also is extremely expensive, although probably cheaper in the long run than using INMARSAT. It also permits extremely high bandwidths. This might be a good way to link your country to the net, but you have to be feeding a lot of other nodes in order for the wide bandwidth of this system to be profitable. The third way I can think of is through amateur packet radio. The problem here is that of getting a license in the country involved, the fact that the amateur satellites are not in geosynchronous orbit so they can only be used at certain times of the day, and that they can't be used for anything even vaguely commercial. This is a very powerful resource, though, and pretty cheap too. Still, a good telephone system is essential to modern business. I think that having phone lines and preferably a local exchange is more important than computer communications. Start with the easy stuff first; it's quite easy to set up local phone systems and probably not all that expensive. Old crossbar exchanges are available in the U.S. by the pound (avoirdupois, not sterling), and there is a lot of equipment which is perhaps dated by modern standards, but quite serviceable. --scott
mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) (05/29/91)
On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio: I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially to access the internet. This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay to be dealt with, as I recall. My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically compete with more standard methods? Marc.
pthomas@arecibo.aero.org (05/29/91)
In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca>, mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes... (edited) >On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio: >particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to >me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially >to access the internet. >This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew >were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay >to be dealt with, as I recall. >My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few >years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically >compete with more standard methods? Marc, et al., Yes--packet is now up to 56K. Of course, like high speed modems of many kinds these are very expensive. The other issue is connectivity--you'd need to find a phone patch repeater capable of the same speed, and might have to worry about getting a good connection (as mentioned earlier not all AMSATS are geosynch, in fact most aren't) for any length of time. The challenges are great, but the potential rewards also seem excellent. --Pete
wwm@wa8tzg.mi.org (Bill Meahan) (05/30/91)
In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes: > >On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio: > >I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was >particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to >me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially >to access the internet. > >This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew >were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay >to be dealt with, as I recall. > >My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few >years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically >compete with more standard methods? > > Marc. From a TECHNICAL standpoint, yes. Local VHF links at 56Kb are starting to become common. Experimentation with 2Mb and up networks has yielded good results. HOWEVER There is a real killer to the idea of extending USENET around the world via ham packet: IT ISN'T LEGAL! Current US law and the WARC treaties make it impossible to use packet to drop e-mail/newsfeeds into the rest of the world. Regardless of the TECHNICAL feasibility of this proposal, until the LAWS are changed, it won't happen. -- Bill Meahan (WA8TZG) | Programming is simple: wwm@wa8tzg.mi.org OR | uunet!mailrus!sharkey!wa8tzg!wwm | All you have to do is put the right "Home for Cybernetic Orphans" | numbers in the right memory locations!
kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) (05/30/91)
In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes: >I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was >particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to >me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially >to access the internet. >This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew >were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay >to be dealt with, as I recall. >My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few >years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically >compete with more standard methods? Well, because of bandwidth limitations with HF, it's not going to get much higher than 1200 baud. And granted that 1200 baud isn't so hot for internet access, but it's amazing how much can be done with 1200. Until about ten years back, hams were limited to 110 baud with Baudot code by U.S. law. 1200 bps is a vast improvement, but of course it requires much better propagation conditions for HF than the slower speeds. There are a lot of us still running morse code at 20 wpm, and it's astonishing how much information can be carried if it's properly encoded. --scott
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (05/30/91)
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) writes: > Hey, is it really necessary to have a local > telephone exchange before you can hook up > internationally? Couldn't a small satellite dish > with the appropriate equipment do the job? I think it's being done; I ran across a complaint from a New Zealander that ruffians from the US were failing to find local ftp sites, and instead running up his NZ satellite charges by doing ftp across the big puddle. From the description, this was a site link rather than a national link, but I may have misunderstood that part. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (05/30/91)
If you didn't catch them in your list, add Namibia to the nations on the net; I've exchanged email with a doctor who reads news there (feed is through South Africa). Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
ccml@hippo.ru.ac.za (Mike Lawrie) (05/31/91)
In <1991May29.225523.10888@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >If you didn't catch them in your list, add Namibia >to the nations on the net; I've exchanged email with >a doctor who reads news there (feed is through South >Africa). No prizes, but have you collected the set? We also forward email to Botswana, Kenya and Ethiopia (this latter is not so reliable of late....). Goes via Fidonet, which is an excellent solution for getting email reliably to low-tech places. Works pretty well for high-techies also. Mike -- Mike Lawrie Director Computing Services, Rhodes University, South Africa .....................<ccml@hippo.ru.ac.za>.......................... Rhodes University condemns racism and racial segregation
alayne@hobbit.gandalf.ca (Alayne McGregor) (05/31/91)
In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes: > >On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio: > >I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was >particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to >me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially >to access the internet. > >This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew >were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay >to be dealt with, as I recall. > >My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few >years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically >compete with more standard methods? The Packet Working Group of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Society is selling 56K baud packet radio modems, which run TCP/IP over AX.25. Considerably faster than 1200 baud. (I'm not an amateur radio operator nor a member of the group, so please don't ask technical questions. I can refer you to members if you're interested.) Alayne McGregor alayne@gandalf.ca